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Monday, February 21, 2011

How to live on 24 hours a day - Summary

An excellent short old book for making the most of the time for employed people with 9-5 type of schedule. Read online at manyread.net here

These are my notes from the book.

1. Time is limited for everyone.
2. We have equal time. We don't have credit and we can't have debts of it.
3. Simply begin. There is no waiting, just simply begin.

Let me principally warn you against your own ardour. Ardour in well-doing
is a misleading and a treacherous thing. It cries out loudly for employment;
you can't satisfy it at first; it wants more and more; it is eager to move
mountains and divert the course of rivers. It isn't content till it perspires.
And then, too often, when it feels the perspiration on its brow, it wearies all of a sudden and dies, without even putting itself to the trouble of saying, "I've had enough of this."

4.

If a man
makes two-thirds of his existence subservient to one-third, for which
admittedly he has no absolutely feverish zest, how can he hope to live fully
and completely? He cannot.
One of the chief things which my
typical man has to learn is that the mental faculties are capable of a
continuous hard activity; they do not tire like an arm or a leg. All they want
is change--not rest, except in sleep

5.
Audit your day for the time you are not in office and consider it as another day. Accept you are not that tired at that time and choose to do something at that time if not everyday atleast once in two days. Keep them sacred very very sacred.

6. Don't think it is easy so plan for the misgivings of human nature. But try to keep it. Train your mind because thoughts are the root of everything. Read a passage of epictetus and marcus aurelius and meditate on it

9.Get interested in arts or reasoning or anything and follow it up daily. In other words, get interested in something out of your zone daily.

I have two general suggestions of a certain
importance. The first is to define the direction and scope of your efforts.
Choose a limited period, or a limited subject, or a single author. Say to
yourself: "I will know something about the French Revolution, or the rise
of railways, or the works of John Keats." And during a given period, to be
settled beforehand, confine yourself to your choice. There is much pleasure
to be derived from being a specialist.

10. Beware of becoming a prig, or becoming a slave to your schedule or taking on too much or reading without digesting or reading something which you are not interested in.